Boldly going nowhere: Nasa ends plan to put man back on Moon

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The first launch of the Columbia Space Shuttle in 1981SSPL/Getty Images

Jacqui GoddardMiami

Last updated at 12:01AM, June 14 2010

Nasa has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that
were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon — effectively dismantling the
US human spaceflight programme despite a congressional ban on its doing so.

Legislators have accused President Obama’s Administration of contriving to
slip the termination of the Constellation programme through the back door to
avoid a battle on Capitol Hill.

Constellation aimed to build upon what was arguably America’s greatest
technological achievement, the first lunar landing of 1969, by launching new
expeditions to the Moon and to Mars and worlds beyond. Mr Obama proposed in
February